Broken like a Doll
by puzzlepuzzle
Summary: She once cried for Father to turn behind, to pick her from the shelf, high above the world, and to be truly his doll, Suigin Tou. And now, she must decide the path to wallk after awakening to witness Meg slowly drift away as the years flit by.
1. Chapter 1

Broken like a Doll

* * *

Darkness. 

Then light.

Then dark again.

She tried to speak and found that she couldn't, but the name on his lips was hers, and she wanted to tell him she was glad that he had made her.

But she could not.

Suigin Tou.

Mercury Lamp.

She opened her eyes, trying not to flinch at the light. These hands, she noted with a rare satisfaction and insane joy, were very white, very fine, even more beautiful and nimble than the things she was viewing with these eyes for the first time.

And she was beautiful, she was perfect, the way he had made her to be, and that thought, that knowledge, made her heart blaze.

But her life hadn't just started, no, she had felt herself being made, known that she was being formed, felt the breath being put into her, from the silk, snow strands encapsulated and rooted in her scalp, to her lips being painted the faintest pink of the newest bud blooming, and then to her torso being lifted and put high above the rest.

But-

"Father." She called out.

Something ingrained, empiric knowledge, ability to recognise his presence, to know he stood before her, to call him what he was. Not a doll maker, although she knew, another piece of mandatory awareness, that she was a doll and he had made her. But he was, to her-

"Father." She tried again.

Her voice was weaker than she thought it might have been, compared to the beating of birds' wings in her heart. The Rosa Mystica was her heart, but her heart existed, nonetheless.

He did not turn around, and she strained both her voice and her body.

And perhaps for the first time, the light fell and the final fronds of ink night parted to reveal her beautifully sculpted torso, proud, fine head, and luminous brow and rose coloured eyes, framed by snow hair with the slightest licking of ash-grey. But nothing beyond the torso.

Was there supposed to be anything? Something?

All there was then, was just a brokenness that existed, literally, beyond her.

She stilled, a deadly calm washed over her, but perhaps her father had made her to be different. Or was she even different?

Wasn't she made to be like this, and if Father had made her thus, then she was made to be perfect?

She was simply this way, and she would gladly rather close her eyes and never call out to him again, rather than blame him for anything.

"Father," she muttered, now more to herself than him. Her eyes roved around, dolls like her, not like her, almost like, but not quite, or totally. She could scarcely tell at times. They confused her, they refused to speak to her, they looked at each other with close eyes, they spoke through silence, they were queer, all of them. And her father had made all of them.

_With proper waists and legs._

What about her?

They looked weary, their eyes were closed, but their expressions slightly unsettled, as if they were about to wake.

She didn't want them to at times.

She watched him brush the auburn locks of one clad in forest-coloured chiffon, and sighed to herself as he did likewise for another which shared the same face as the previous one, but only clad in ocean with shorter hair and equally pretty hands. The lace on their chests was Horiton, the finest. But anything Father created was the finest, they deserved likewise.

He called them names she craved for herself, so pretty were their names. So pretty their names were on his lips.

When his white fingertips brushed their cheeks, she fought to keep from crying and sobbing. She wanted to be there to be on that table, to be either one, to be both, to be all and loved. And she sternly whispered to herself, "I _already_ am."

She gazed at his back, and he busied himself with an ornate if not opulent, rose-coloured satin ribbon. It went atop the head of the tiniest doll, its golden curls freshly powdered and brushed roughly, then shaped with a fine-toothed ivory bone comb. She was not envious of those curls which mimicked the light she had seen, it was slightly hay-coloured even, and if her father had granted her ash and snow, she would embrace it rather than want of hay coloured locks.

He straightened the matching frock it wore, muttering how a red ribbon or two would make it even more adorable. She stared with dismay as he added these on the hay-coloured haired doll's chest, sleeves, hem, and the final touch- the slim, white-stocking clad feet.

Winter was blossoming somewhere in her. She had none of those, red ribbons, luscious curls, apple coloured cheeks, and worse of all, those dainty feet.

How much she would have liked to have those ribbons! And what, she asked miserably, what would she have given for him to present those to her?

"Anything, Father," she sobbed silently.

He still did not turn around. Perhaps he could not hear her.

She watched, doll after doll case after case, being carried away. The cases were things of beauty, ebony and laced with molten gold that looked freshly melted. And she strained in the impending darkness to see and to know, to recognise, to understand, the symbol and motif delicately splayed out on the field of black cloth- the rose.

Rose maidens, all of them.

'I am one too,' she prayed silently to someone, anyone who would hear, who would_ listen_, 'Let me be one too.'

And all left but her, her high above, on the shelf, where she cried out to him over and over again, but nary a glance did he bestow.

But the last doll, it was caressed so tenderly, so gently, that the cry of anguish left her lips before she could block the strange hatred and pure anger in her heart. She never knew what those sensations and emotions were, she only felt them to the very last ounce of her spirit.

The last doll had peach coloured skin, fair but somehow still milky.

She glanced at her own shoulders. A trick of the light-?

It was pallid.

The last doll had rose coloured lips.

She knew hers were paler. She felt them to be paler. She realised them to be paler.

The last doll had hair the texture and sheen of sunlight, it was glossy to a finish and finer than the threads she had seen lying, unwanted, on her father's work table.

A few strands moving into her eyes told her that hers were far lighter coloured, without the sheen, but with more ash and less light. Not sunlight like the fifth doll's, but closer to the night that she loathed, when her father put down his brush and moulds and left the world.

Her heart twisted itself in anguish.

The last doll was clad in a colour she longed for, second after second, nightfall after nightfall, light after light, and attempt after attempt-

To call for her father.

It was a deep, rich, luscious, anything she could call it, ruby, crimson, red, blood, rose, anger, misery. These were all the fifth doll's clothing invoked in her, stirred in her, and she wanted to fondle that material against her, feel its rustle clothing her, embrace its velvetine touch, revel in its sparkling, beauteous nature. Feel the white, sacred silk stockings against her legs. But she had neither stockings nor more maddening, legs.

She swivelled pitifully to look at her torso. White skin, fine like bone, taut like a deerskin drum she had once saw her father destroy after making. He had muttered that it wasn't perfect. So he had destroyed it.

"I'm not destroyed," She whispered to herself, "So I must be perfect."

Porcelain and smooth, it was, yes, that she would be thankful for at the very least, but it was bare and raw, naked, clothed only in shame and melancholy.

She closed her eyes, cringing.

When she forced them open, her father was taking the doll, lifting her majestically to ride upon his folded arm, bearing a cloak that shielded the fifth doll, protected her, paraded her. And the final case was swept up with the other arm, to be brought away.

All too late, she cried out for him to turn behind, to look at her to pick her from the shelf, high above the world, high above his world, apart from the world she wanted to be in, apart from the world he lived in, and to be truly his doll, Suigin Tou.

Mercury Lamp.

_Take me too_, she begged, take me away with you and grant me hat you have granted them. Take me away with the others, take me away, and take me with you, take-

Her lips formed a perfect 'oh' as she lurched forward, dangerously, yearning to be taken, to be lifted off, to be rested on his arm.

_I don't need red ribbons or a ruby gown and roses sewn in my hair or lace on my neck and chest,_ she tried to shout to him_, I just need to be taken away with you, to be with you._

The words never came, only a choked and desperate cry.

Her hair was swept backwards, and with a gasp, she knew that the shelves below the uppermost one that she had rested on, were reversing themselves, jumping upside down, one by one, too fast for her eyes to view their contents, but then she knew, with a sickening dread in the base of her, that she was falling and falling.

She landed with a dull crunch and hollow thud of pieces, but she was still one, as unbroken as she could possibly be.

And she knew then, that she had been broken from the start, broken and incomplete no matter how much she prayed to be perfect, dreamt of being whole, and therefore she could not be broken from the fall, for she already was broken in the first place.

"Father!"

It ended with a scream.

The pearls that were cascading from somewhere, strange how her vision was blurring rapidly, she counted the pearls sliding down her nose, one, two, five, twelve, sixteen, what were those?

Her cheeks were strange, they felt- _what was this?_ What were these pearls and the ache in her heart, that piercing thorn in her side?

So she lay, brokenly sobbing, trying to struggle up, trying to reach them, trying to move forward, but somehow knowing that she could not, that she_ would not_, that she would never.

And all this while, he did not turn back to look.

This was the birth of Suigin Tou, Mercury Lamp.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Rozen Maiden. R&R please.

_

* * *

_

_And I so very much want to sing you a song, _

_Just my own,_

_Just for you,_

_Just for both of us_

_To listen to._

* * *

_And I so very much want you to see me,_

_The way I am sitting on this window sill_

_White ebony and Black snow,_

_Waiting and deciding and languishing, what to do_

_If my pain should never cease to grow._

* * *

_And I so very much want to hide all_

_These scars on the limit of my neck that are_

_Akin to these ugly thorns a rose in flaming fall_

_Should never think to carry, or even have to,_

_But am I, broken like a doll, one of yours at all?_

* * *

_And I so very much want to have_

_You make something just for me;_

_A twin, my own posy-tinted ribbon to gloat_

_Over, my own violin, my own portrait of_

_The one I love best snugly resting on my throat._

* * *

_And I so very much want to see _

_The eyes that are blue like skies I dream_

_Of but have never actually seen for__ myself, _

_To reach out and then know why, to understand_

_You created me the only way you best deem._

* * *

_And I so very much want to dance_

_Each violin's squeal of adoration_

_Every note of every arabesque_

_To remind you then, that I am yours,_

_All that is swathed, ivory lace and satin dusk._

* * *

_So you'll think of me the way_

_I want you to, if I am to now say_

_And tell you I need you to, the way_

_I burn for you to be here and hold me_

_Every single day._

* * *

_She was in utter, absolute, pure pain. _

_But the crystal mirror in front of her was glowing and she knew her will was strong, and therefore she mustered whatever that remained of her, of that in her, and pushed forward like she would therefore see daylight. Part of her thought this to be true, part of her desired this to be true, and part of it knew she was lying._

_On the day Father left, Suigin Tou had wept for a night._

_The next night, she tried to stand but found she could not and even though she didn't particularly relish the sensation of those unknown pearls ravishing her face, she had sobbed again and again._

_The next night, she pulled herself to ebony and ivory, each ribbon more delicately terrible than a rose with their woody thorns, and clad herself, slowly, weepingly, in it, until she was framed in black. She would have preferred blue, blue like her father's eyes, but he had only left her this._

_Her arms were stong, her will stronger, and her tears seemingly unending._

_The next night, the tears sobbed and her wails began._

_And to-night, she would find him and ask him to carry her on his arm and stroke her hair like the finest down of the most splendid swans that were ever hunted and made captive in their flurry of snow and cries of lost freedom._

_Her arms pulled her through and her heart beat faster and faster, like a mad drum sinewed with deer skin and ribbed with whale bone, but then when she closed her eyes, she could feel nothing that she had imagined Father's embrace to be, not warm and golden. but blue, cool and painless, and she rejoiced for a reason she could not fathom, she only knew she would see him, only knew he would surely take her in his arms and tell her he had made her perfect and she was perfect as his, his doll._

_And the floor hit her chin and she cried out in dismay. It wasn't good to seem ungainly in front of Father, he would surely be displeased with her conduct. Her arms were flailing everywhere, there were cries of a little girl, those she could recognise at very least, she had heard one wailing for her mother to buy her a doll from Father, but he had refused no matter how fat the purse with embroidered cats was, how empty it was willing to be in exchange for that doll with the straw-hair and pretty pink ribbon atop its fine head._

_"Sarah!"_

_The girl?_

_She turned on her arms, and came face to face with the ruby-rose doll. But she neither saw the frosty blue eyes or the tiny pink rosebud that was the doll's mouth, the golden hair was fair, very flaxen, and she saw Father, remembered Father's neat locks that were tied behind him, sat across his broad white back, and her eyes flew to his face, resting across the other doll's throat._

_She shrieked, a cry, a squander of hope, and flew at it, not caring that the other doll was screaming in rage and slapping her back, not caring that she was being slapped, not caring that she was made to look ungainly again, back on the cold, hard ground, with her tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes and that the little girl and the other doll were now talking and holding a discussion about her, as if she didn't exist._

_Because she was starting to feel as if she did not._

_She became conscious, however, that she was being forced to sit upright, and a very pretty doll and the human child was looking at her. She sat, lost in a trance, in a violin concerto she had once heard Father play, and when it finally ended and she was caught with a need to know why he had never picked her up for himself to hold, the human was telling the other doll that she, Suigin Tou, had a very beautiful face._

* * *

"Listen," Meg was calling, "Are you hearing what I hear?" 

"No," Suigin Tou said quite sharply in response, her ire raised in her being interrupted from her thoughts as the air whipped near the window and became slightly chilly as a breeze whistled by. She hated afternoons like these.

Meg's eyes were wide and dreamlike, her finely-made head turned towards Suigin, her hair fanning out on the white pillow like ink that had been spilled from a shattered fountain pen Suigin had once seen been dropped. And Meg smiled lovingly, utter trust and no trace of fear at all in her eyes, even though she was not a fool, she knew what the doll was capable of. And yet she could smile at Suigin like this.

Suigin's eyes narrowed to slits of brilliant pink rose. Meg was such a child.

"He's coming," she said breathlessly to Suigin, "I think you better-,"

"I'm not an imbecile," the doll cut in rudely, "And you look terrible."

She studied her mistress, and the young woman stared at herself. They knew this was not true, even though Meg's hands were pale and tiny, her fingers so thin they were almost skeletal, but not quite, and that very ambiguity was distressing. But Meg had became a little better since a while ago, not that Suigin was clear when, because the days were all so long and so strangely peaceful to pass here, listening sometimes to Meg hum her song and tell Suigin how much she desired for her company.

And Suigin had gradually found, as the days passed, one at a time, that Meg's eyes were becoming brighter, her hair lustrous and raven, no longer a limp jet, although her feet were still stone and her waist the limit of her mobility. But that was fine.

_I've been uniquely defeated three times and revived three times by Father, and yet I am not Alice. What am I here for then?_

In a pool of water, she had been asleep, and she had heard strange musical beings take over her world, sometimes singing melancholy nocturnes, sometimes solemn Gregorian chants, and she had ached to respond, knowing deep somewhere that she couldn't.

She had lost the Alice Game.

But then, once, she heard a lone piccolo sound, like a single ray of light, and then felt hands lifting her to sit up from the pool of cool, merciless water she had been half-submerged in. And then it was almost as if she had been sitting on the old, dusty shelf again and the window somewhere had been carefully taken open with the curtains parted for the sun to shoot its arrows in. The piccolo was lost in a myriad of strings, the cello now playing the solo. And Father was speaking to her.

And Suigin Tou had woken up, bathed in golden warmth. Her father had touched her with his light, awoken her from the abyss that was the hell given to every doll that lost the chance to become Alice. Who was she? Suigin didn't know quite for sure, but she wanted to be Alice, needed to be Alice.

Not just yet however.

Suigin knew somehow that it wasn't time to tell Meg anything. It would surely mark the end of what she had now, and Suigin didn't know what to think. She therefore chose not to.

And Meg was slowly but surely, transforming. She was bedridden, weak still, but somehow pleasing to the eye from the waist up. Not unlike herself, Suigin thought sadly. She studied her mistress, the ring rested snugly upon her finger, the gold a bit darkened from the centuries of its birth, very enigmatic a glimmer upon the creamy flesh that thinly masked the bone.

Meg was, to Suigin- oh, what was she?

Beautiful? Maybe, in the frail, delicate but determined way. A friend? No. Suigin didn't know what friendship was. A mistress? Yes, the Rosa Mystica was clearly to be seen on the finger. Something more than that? Suigin didn't know anymore. She had wanted to be Alice then, so much so, so badly so, but she had thought then, just before she had lost to the imposter doll, just as her snow and grey hair streamed out wildly as Shinku had screamed in pain for her sake, that her biggest regret was not the inability to be Alice. Alice was a pure, beautiful, loved one. Suigin had thought then, brokenly, just before she had collapsed on the ground in her defeat, that it wasn't the not being Alice that had brought her pain.

Then what?

Sometimes, Suigin tried to make herself think that this was not true, but she sometimes allowed herself to admit that not being able to be Meg's 'angel', not being able to be _Meg's own Alice_, had been more painful than anything else.

But Suigin never said this, she didn't allow that kind of thoughts to interrupt her even now. She stared down at Meg.

The stupid girl was lost in her thoughts and the warmth of the blankets, her eyes were closed and a glow of pleasure on her face. Suigin suspected that she knew the reason behind this, and when the girl opened her eyes, as if awaking from a long sleep, there would be something foreign and strange in their depths.

And how long had it been since she, Suigin, awoke again?

"Meg," Suigin murmured regally, standing very poised and elegant upon the slightly grimy window sill, it was like both of them, wide and vulnerable but very hard on the outside and somehow broken on its edges, "I will watch him today."

The girl stared in some shock. "You will? But you don't think he would ever harm me? He's the doctor, my life depends on him, and I should think he would never be as callous to harm or hurt me in any single way, I should not believe that he would every lift a finger to harm a hair on my hea-,"

She was babbling now in an effort to let her doll comprehend her thoughts.

"No matter," Suigin interrupted brusquely, her wings terse, "I trust him very little."

The door swung open, as if in a strong protest to her words, and there was only just time for Suigin to dart like a jet arrow, behind the curtain. But she could still stay to see them if she was quiet enough, and Meg's little gasp of delight was already the only thing that Suigin could think of now.

She peeped quietly from the fawn-coloured curtains they had brought in a while ago, new and slightly scented with citrus and embossed with white carnation cross-stitches. He had brought those in, insisted that the patients needed to be allowed to recover with every ounce of support the hospital could offer. But Suigin knew he had bought those himself, she had seen him from the sky, like a hawk jutting down on the sparrow, the man pausing at a haberdashery's and paying for those with his own money. And Suigin was as sure as her name was Suigin Tou, that only Meg's room flaunted those soft, ravishing curtains.

"How are you?"

A light crimson, courteous, filled with kindness and concern.

"Fine, I'm, I-,"

Pastel pink, a bit awkward but quite happy.

"Don't feel shy; take these, I know you're not allergic to roses."

Garnet, a bit teasingly.

"I- I don't know what to say, I-,"

An even creamier shade of pastel.

And his laughter was a ringing bell sound, continuous and clean in the air, but Suigin scowled. It was a very ugly one.

The doctor was young, that she knew at least, even though Suigin had seen very few humans up front to trust them, with the exception of Meg, of course. Her medium was the only human Suigin Tou thought of as tolerable.

This one however, he had that sort of face that reminded her of freshly-scrubbed, large, smooth pebbles, white and very clean. His eyes, she observed now, were quite blue, and she was reminded her of something that made her innards twist and untwist maddeningly. He was handsome a human, she grudgingly admitted, but the more she looked at him, the more she thought of-

"How is your cousin, Doctor?"

Sepia-coloured voice, a bit curious, a bit too lost in her own thoughts.

"She'll arrive from Germany tomorrow, I suppose you've seen what she looks like?"

Grey-coloured, flecks of little blue, quite neutral, polite, very calming in a sort of unmistakeable way.

"You've shown me a picture of her, she has your blonde hair and blue eyes."

Yellow, sunny but a bit reproachful at the doctor's slight absent-mindedness.

"I forgot," he was laughing now, "But this hair and eyes are common in my home country."

"Does Japan suit you?"

Orange, a bit worried and mostly child-like.

'As if he'd leave,' Suigin thought rather spitefully, not daring to openly stare lest she was discovered. The best she could obtain was the sound of their voices. From their estimated volumes, she could gather that he was sitting next to Meg, but then he usually did that, settled himself in the wooden chair next to her bed, and watched her sit up, helped her to.

Her father had never done that for her.

"Come now; you know I like it here."

Green. Like fresh grass that released dewy gems upon being trodden by careless feet.

She was laughing now, her voice was like a dove's pitter-patter of snowy white wings, so unlike Suigin's own. And a slight envy rose and blossomed in Suigin's body, Meg had very rarely laughed.

'Not that I tried to make her anyway,' She thought hastily. She retied the bow at her neck as if to comfort herself.

"Fine. Where did you buy these roses?"

Her voice was a very faint shade of lilac, shy and endearing. Suigin closed her eyes, fighting back a sigh.

"There's a new shop near the hospital," a slight clearing of his throat, "I couldn't resist buying them. The pinks were the prettiest, so I thought of giving them to you, I hope they'll brighten up the place."

Liar.

The shop had been there for ages. Not that Meg would know. She hadn't ventured out of this bed for two years, and when they changed the sheets, she was put into a wheelchair and made to wait in another room. Her parents never tried to make her walk, she was as good an invalid. And they would never see her again, Suigin understood this. Perhaps they were watching over their daughter, but Suigin didn't care. They hadn't any right to.

But that was the least of the point, the point was that this man had bought roses for her without a particularly sound or good reason.

And Suigin knew his voice was the same colour as Meg's. She glared at the sky she was facing, her back still turned to the window and shielded by the curtains. She felt like ripping them for fun, watching them split from cloth limb to cloth limb.

"Meg, I-"

Turquoise. Questioning, terribly soft but intense.

She could sense the tremble in Meg's body. The connection had grown very strong since Suigin had taken her as her medium, and Meg had somehow became reliant on her. Turquoise. But Father's voice was ruby coloured in contrast, no matter how much this human and Father looked alike, very powerful, persuasive, and all-binding.

Suigin made her decision there and then.

Her hand stretched out in the air, her sword materialised and her lips became tight and thin, she swung the blade neatly but very angrily, it whistled and cut the air and suddenly, part of the glass window was cracking with a lightning whine and shatter. Suigin was already leaping into the air, backwards in a graceful arc, and her wings spread out completely, bathing the air before her with ink feathers that floated, decadent, down to the window sill.

The man was already at the window, peering out and muttering oaths under his breath in his native tongue. Meg had gasped, and Suigin, in the tree at the side, sitting poised and unruffled now, glared.

"Must be those stupid kids," the man said, a bit upset, running a hand through his slightly curly but boyish blond curls, his hand was milky-white and very fine and carefully-boned, "Always throwing stones at crows and never understanding that they throw like David trying to kill Goliath."

Meg was silent, Suigin knew she was in panic.

She peered, she could see the man's lower body retreating, his pants were black, made darker by his pristine white coat, and a shine of metal told her his instrument was out.

"Are you going now?"

Beige, a sort of plea in Meg's voice.

"After your check, yes."

Wine coloured. Professional but slightly reluctant and a bit strained and as if it was fighting to keep something out of it. Sugin suspected that she knew what it was. But she kept herself in check.

And so she turned away as the curtains were pulled together, cutting off Suigin's vision and the daylight. He might have caught sight of her otherwise, and all hell would break loose. She knew the procedure well, he would draw the curtains like the other nurses and doctors had before he had arrived at this hospital and taken over the care of Meg, and Meg's nurse would come in and help her with her hospital gown.

She felt a throb somewhere near the ribbons splayed out on her chest, Meg's heartbeat was being taken, she could almost feel the cold nub of metal caressing the skin and flesh and the compact coldness of that round shape, and she herself grimaced, knowing the wince the difference in temperature forced out of her mistress. She gasped a little at the way it slid perilously over her skin and under her dress, but she knew Meg would be made to relax in the room. They were almost like one.

Then it was over, the curtains were being drawn apart and Meg's nurse's legs were retreating out of the room now, her stockings quite silky a cream. The doctor was moving away now, his legs were no longer slightly bent, his instrument was being whisked away and she could see Meg's hands redoing the buttons of her gown. She scowled again.

"I have other patients to attend to."

A darker shade of wine.

"Will you come again?"  
Pale lilac once more.

"You're my patient, how could I not?"

A pastel green, unconvincing but still comforting.

"Oh."

A dull grey. Suigin shook her head. Silly child.

But when the last of the humans had left, she flew back to the window and rearranged herself, her sword no where in sight. Meg's eyes were reproachful. "Why did you do that?"

She glanced around. The roses were lying on Meg's lap, some petals were loose from their flowers, pink and fresh on the cream wool of the blanket and very wanton and pleasurable to look at. They must have cost a pretty penny.

"Accident." Suigin's voice was cool.

"Oh." The girl was lost in her thoughts again.

And Suigin studied her, afraid to realise what she was seeing. Meg had buttoned her gown wrongly, each button higher above than the rest and revealing hints and an expanse of creamy neck and rich, full, teasing promise. Her face was fresh like the roses the doctor had brought in, but while the roses had a frivolous air about them, Meg's eyes were wide and solemn, and Suigin knew nobody would look at them just once. She saw then, that Meg's lips were pinkish, salmon strips and plump, a result from her improving condition, and her forehard was wide and smooth, very fair from her lack of direct sunlight.

And then Suigin suddenly knew.

Five years had passed since the day Father had roused her from the deep sleep that had been like a blanket over her head, and Meg was no longer a child of seventeen.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_**

* * *

**"My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.  
"Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.  
"What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?  
"I never know what you are thinking. Think." _

T.S. Eliot

The Wasteland

* * *

* * *

_A year ago, Suigin Tou had been watching as Meg slept, undisturbed, somehow not as peacefully as Suigin would have desired, but well enough, considering that her slender body was overweighed with tubes and a mask was covering half her face. A cloud of thin vapour kept condesing and reforming, like a flock of white birds that were being vanished and insistently appearing again to flaunt their determination. _

_And then the doctor had came in, old, ugly, wizened like an ape, with gold-framed spectacles that were beginning to chip in the corners. This cued Suigin immediately, she disappeared behind the faded, greyed curtains, a colour she was unable to distinguish from its original intended hue._

_The nurse was watching carefully, and she offered softly as so to not wake Meg, "Doctor, she's sleeping."_

_"That's all she does anyway." _

_Cold and indifferent. _

_Silence was aplenty from the nurse, she was not supposed to speak at this sort of remarks her superior made. And Suigin stiffened._

_For a year ago, Suigin had discovered that the previous doctor was embezzling the hospital funds, she had overheard this while sitting near a bush one day, being deadly still with her eyes closed, the white lashes like spider webs on her pale cheek. She knew enough to loathe the old badger. But what made Suigin seethe with black rage was the way he had refused to see Meg when the nurse had pleaded for him to come during one of her worst coughing fits. He had asserted that she was merely being the typical patient that did not deserve so much care as for him to make a trip down to see her, all these excuses when his office had been but a mere floor below Meg's room. He had been receiving extra money from another patient's family to put more attention on that patient, and therefore, the old doctor had neglected Meg._

_Suigin, behind the curtain exactly a year ago, had closed her eyes, breathing heavily as if she had only just sparred, her tiny fists clenched uglily, her eyes angry and darkened, hearing while Meg panted inside, pitifully, calling out for someone while the nurse frantically tried to resolve her pain but to little effect._

_A week later, the doctor slipped into his car, carelessly throwing his briefcase in the backseat without a single glance at it. But there was a sound, and he turned behind and saw that his bag was on the floor and there was a large doll inclined, sitting on the seat with finery fit for humans, opal and jet, very deep, striking jet and pale flowing hair and a tranquil face. The eyes were closed, but slightly peeping._

_He squealed like a piglet being roasted alive, nearly shouting in his shock, but nobody heard him because the car doors had been locked then._

_"Why's there a doll here?"_

_Nobody answered him. He began to calm down. Perhaps the attendent had thought this doll was his grand-daughter's, who sometimes came to visit while he worked on his shifts, perhaps he had merely found the doll and assumed this to be such. His heartbeat had slowed a little, and he had begun to chuckle then._

_"I wonder how much this sort of doll can fetch?"_

_And that was when Suigin Tou opened her rose-coloured eyes, now darkened to blood-fed roses, and smiled at him._

_Exactly a year ago, a few days after that incident, Meg was reading the newspapers. She had gasped aloud in dismay and gestured for Suigin to come closer, but the doll ignored her, merely sat, poised and undisturbed, by the usual spot on her window while her medium read aloud. _

_Meg's doctor, a senior professional at the hospital, had gotten into a car accident and driven his car, quite accidentally, off the road and subsequently plunged into a sea. His corpse had been found, bloated and grotesque, leaking water that had to be pumped out first before the autopsy. The coroner had discovered strange wounds on his neck, as if someone had taken a pen-knife and slashed at his throat, but those were dismissed as glass cuts, common in car accidents, and also because it was impossible for someone to commit a murder by slashing without leaving fingerprints, and then escaping just as the car collided into the deep sea, no matter how fast or good a swimmer the would-be murderer was. _

_Unless, of course, Meg noted thoughtfully, the person could fly, perhaps lift himself or herself out of the sea to watch the car becoming a tiny dark speck in the glassy sea until it faded completely from sight, under the waves._

_She had paused, looking at her doll. _

_Suigin Tou had been sitting, leaning against the sill of the window, girlish and pretty, smiling tranquilly even though her clothes had not yet dried, from the rain, Meg supposed, and salt crystals were beginning to form in the snowy strands, like glittering diamonds adorning the mane of a queen. _

_And Suigin Tou had been fondling her sword, sharp even though it was the size of a letter opener, and for some inexplicable reason, Meg's heart began to beat very, very fast._

_And then, a request had been made for a replacement, and the German doctor, young and handsome, had arrived._

* * *

Currently, this doctor, young and less experienced, but far more caring and tender to her medium, was doing well enough for Suigin to tolerate him. To a certain extent, Suigin was responsible for his actions, because of her, this man had taken the place of Meg's former caretaker, a human who had expolited Meg's state and chosen to be careless and indifferent to someone so dependent on his help. 

Now, Suigin looked at Meg. She was drawing, something she had picked up recently when the doctor had told her that she could try to brighten up her days; he complimented her drawings, framed them up, proudly showed the nurses one that she had given him, a watercolour painting of a rose garden. And Suigin was slightly irritated.

"What are you doing?" Suigin's voice however, was not unkind.

Meg grinned, lifiting up her arm so her doll could peer over to obtain a better sight. "I'm painting a row of cafes. I dreamt I walked along one of those yesterday."

Suigin narrowed her eyes. Was the third doll up to something?

"That's all you dreamt of, I hope? You didn't see-," a hesitant pause, "Any dolls?"

"Dolls? Oh, yes, I did."

"What?" Immediate panic. What if Suisei Seki had decided to destroy Meg's tree and ravage it entirely? What happened then if they decided to take vengeance for what Suigin had done to the midnight twin?

Meg laughed, shaking her head. "No, just one doll. I dreamt of you, Suigin Tou."

"Oh."

The silence became a rather peaceful, calming one. Then curious, she lifted her head up and stared at her medium. The girl was caressing the roses gently, silent in her own thoughts and a smile in her eyes.

Sharply now, "What did you dream of me doing then?"  
A slight pause and then Meg looked up, her eyes dreamy but shining. and she said softly, "Your hair was braided. I was combing it, and it was very soft and like silk that slipped through my fingers, and it smelt of-,"

"Roses."

"Oh!" In innocent surprise. "How did you know?"

And Suigin Tou glared at her. Meg didn't shrink in the sour gaze though, she looked only puzzled. Five years of being with a doll like Suigin had taught Meg to ignore these little things because the doll had carried so many wounds that Meg somehow wished to heal but didn't know quite how to.

"My hair's my hair for a reason. Of course I'd recognise the scent. Besides,-" She sighed now, looking quite wistful, although her bangs covered her expression, "All dolls made by Rozen are similar in that attribute."

Meg's eyes were all-consuming diamonds, glittering in her white face as she inquired, "Describe to me again, all your sisters. I feel as if I'm starting to forget them."

"Forget them?" A derisive laugh. "You should, you know, they are so far away from you and I that we needn't bother with my sisters."

She looked carefully at Meg, observing the crestfallen expression that had flickered over her.

_If you know each and every one of them the way I do, you'll know, truly, that your Suigin Tou is the only one that is not complete and not perfect. And then what would you think of your doll then?_

"I-I didn't think of it that way-," Meg stammered, her cheeks were flaming, making her look raw under her white skin. Suigin's eyes were flared slits and her mouth was no longer a rosebud but a fine, thin, pursed line. But her eyes became soft as they passed over the unsure girl, and she uncrossed her legs and recrossed them, taking little heed of the ball bearing joints that rolled about. She was used to those as a doll should have been.

"I am the first Rozen Maiden, Suigin Tou," She said softly. And she watched Meg's eyes light up beautifully like those lamps in the streets that she often saw while wandering in the tree-blocked portions of the sky, like fireflies in the darkness when viewed directly from where she flew. And she knew why Meg's eyes were bright, they had been through this many a time even in a single year, now was no exception. And each time, Suigin began as she did and as she would always do.

"And there is the second doll, Kanaria, dressed in canary yellow and tinier than I am."

"Her hair and eye colour?" Meg prompted, although they both were aware that Meg would have been able to recognise Kanaria from a mile away even now. They had been through this so many times already, but Meg never got tired of hearing about the dolls. And Suigin would always oblige her, unwilling on the surface but obediently in the heart, although talking about them made her feel dizzy with grief and shame. Especially during the recount of the younger dolls.

But for now, she smiled, it was a soft smile Meg could not not notice.

"Coal-grey, very much like a raven's wing to look at, and her eyes are green. They compliment the yellow she wears, you see. Father always knew these things well." Her voice was wistful and quiet now. Then she shook her head, quite unconsciously, and continued.

"The third doll is Suisei Seki, emerald with auburn hair. Her eyes are like holly berries, but one is unripe and the other ready to be eaten. This you know, is opposite of her twin sister's-,"

"Sousei Seki!" Meg interrupted excitedly, beyond herself and gripping onto the blanket, her neck not feeling the strain of continuously looking at the window side in her enthusiasm. She was a child again in her excitement, but, thought Suigin critically, she had never learnt to grow up, she was like a rose bud beginning to bloom, but never because the sun from the outside had shone upon her and taught her new things, simply because it was a rose bud's nature to bloom. In this clinical, white glass prism encapsulating a rose bud, Meg would grow but never grow up.

"Don't interrupt," She replied camly, swishing her head and feeling her long hair sweep off her shoulders, and her tiny fingers adjusted her headband and the pink roses on either side of her head. "But you're correct. That one is Suisei Seki's twin, and she is entirely in midnight blue, save for her hat. She however," A bitter look crossed Suigin's face, "Is nothing like her twin."

"And the fifth doll," now a strained note entered her voice although her face was impassive as always, Meg knew this, she had hear this note consistently each time her doll had spoke of the fifth Rozen Maiden, "She is the ruby in the spectrum of jewels that is us. If Kanaria is to be the topaz, Suisei Seki the emerald, Sousei Seki the lapiz lazuli, Hina Ichigo the rose quartz and Kirakisuishou the opal, then Shinku is the ruby."

"Why not garnet?" Meg asked in awe, Suigin Tou had never used this analogy before. And perhaps, that was the key to why Meg always requested for Suigin Tou to tell her about all the Rozen Maidens, each time her doll spoke of the others, she would see a little more good in each of them, and perhaps, just perhaps, and a little by little, Suigin Tou would change and open into a mellow, soft flower that Meg would be able to hold and embrace without fear of the doll flinching or recoiling like her medium was a snake.

"Because," Suigin said thoughtfully, "A garnet is sometimes stained with orange, a bit glassier and less blood-stained than a ruby. And Shinku is dressed in the colour of fresh blood-roses, sometimes, even I wonder if she has drained the roses of their brilliance. Her eyes are very light blue, very pale but all-knowing, and her hair, " A frown settled itself between her eyebrows, "Is a very fine golden."

"Like your father's?" Meg prompted, talking about him usually shifted Suigin into a fine mood, and her face would not be so bittersweet to look at, the strange marks of anger beneath her rose eyes softening so rapidly that she was another doll altogether, one with an innocent forehead and wide, guiless eyes.

"Yes, and like-," Suigin paused, wondering if she would allow herself to speak aloud, and then she rashly plunged forward, "Like the doctor's."

Meg's face registered nothing for a second, and then her already large eyes became wider and startled surprise fluttered over her face like the birds that came to her window every morning to eat the bread crumbs she'd saved for them, aloft with Suigin Tou. Meg was no fool, no matter what Suigin said to persuade her otherwise, she was fully aware that Suigin sat in the park when nobody was around, and the birds were surely her friends by now, and Suigin had convinced them to come here to keep her company. And the girl had been touched, no matter how much Suigin denied having made the effort to please her.

"He looks like Suigin Tou's father? Eliase?"

The doll stared, with a bit of dismay in her. Although names were not quite with as many nuances as the humans, Suigin Tou, even as a doll, knew humans did not generally call each other by their first names if they were not intimate or related or able to relate to each other on a certain level. And then it struck Suigin that she had never know what Meg's surname was or the young doctor's. Meg had simply been Meg, and the doctor, _that man_.

"Is that what he's called? That man? Eliase?" She asked in confusion. She looked so bewildered that Meg burst out laughing immediately and clutched her side with mirth and a mixture of agony. In an instant, Suigin had leapt off the ledge and was by Meg's side, asking urgently, "Where's the pain?"

Meg cracked open her eyes, tears running out and lolling off the smooth cliffs that were her cheeks, although not quite for the same reasons as Suigin had guessed, and Suigin's hands were pressing close to her forehead, not exactly why she was doing this, except that she had seen Meg's caretakers do this each time, before the girl's face had been covered with a mask and her face paled. And Meg laughed even harder, and then peal after peal erupted and then she choked out to the anxious doll, "Here!"

"Where? Tell me where the pain is!" A cry of panic and misery, not being able to understand what her medium was experiencing then, as if their connection had been broken, for the doll did not understand that there simply wasn't pain in the actual sense of the word. And Meg calmed down, her eyelashes fluttering in her respite from the hold her choking giggles had over her previously, and slowly, she lifted the luminous arm, ignoring the heavy black satin and white lace that parted its curtains as the arm was extended towards her, towards her heart.

"Suigin," Meg said, her youthful but wise, sweet but heartwrenchingly sad, heart-shaped face illuminated with light, and her fine dark hair not uncommon to see in Japan but exceptionally long and multidinuous, "Of all the dolls, I love you the best."

And she watched the doll's face change. Panic to a startled flock of wild birds, joy like the transcient ribbon that would eventually slip, but then this joy lingered on in the doll's eyes, no longer slits of pain but wide glowing, pink gems. And the pallour of her brow was awashed with a moonlight that leaked from the doll's soul, if such a thing had existed, and a stain of rosy sentiment flushed and welled from beneath the white cheeks.

A second later, the doll snatched away her hand and looked flustered, sulky. "Ridiculous."

"It's true!" Meg protested vehemently, "I do! I'll say it again if you'll believe me that way! Suigin Tou, listen to me! Listen, it's-,"

The door was flung open and the doctor stood in the doorway, one hand firmly on the door, the other stiff by his side, and his face bright with suspicion. His eyes were drawn open entirely so the doll and her medium could see the startled storm in the grey-flecked blue, and instinctively, Suigin froze, Meg likewise.

"Meg," Eliase said slowly, venturing forward, the doll heard, as if through a haze, the door creaking as he shut it with his foot, his golden curls coming into view from the corner of her eyes, "Who was in this room? And what's that- that," His words faltered.

The girlish creature standing on Meg's bed was most certainly a doll, although she was so life-like and beautifully real that Elliot would have sworn her to be breathing beneath the black, ornate gown and her feet twitching in the black satin boots that clad them. The doll's arm then, was hanging limply by her side, although a slight rustled edge at the sleeve's partings revealed this doll to be quite capable of various arm positions, given that the ball bearing was now obvious and quite intact. And Eliase simply stared at the extraordinary sight, his patient, bed-ridden with a weak heart, but with flushed cheeks that might have disguised her condition, and shining eyes that resembled comets he had once seen as a boy. And the creature on her bed, a luxuriously-clad doll, enough to satisfy any girl's tendencies for that sort of thing, and he wondered if a collector was more prone to owning these rather than a normal girl, strangely before he even wondered how the doll had gotten there.

With some shock however, he realised that the doll was standing, frozen no doubt, but standing as a human would have, looking directly at Meg, yet, its eyes somehow staring from a corner, right at him. And he noted how fine her face was, how beautiful she was, but shivered slightly at its stark colours and the strange, glowing rose-pink eyes that glimmered in his direction.

He courageously made his way to Meg's side as he normally would have, mandatory in pulling a chair over. And carefully, he looked at Meg, there were beads of sweat beginning to gather at the side of her alabaster forehead, and he pulled out a handkerchief and precisely pressed them off. She hadn't been looking at him, she had seemed to be as frozen as the doll, staring at it with something Eliase, for a minute, thought was horror, but then he reasoned this was impossible unless she was sensitive about being discovered by him to be playing with a doll at her age.

And then, he thought of the time, about three months ago, when he had came to Japan and had taken on this job in an entirely different hospital from the ones he had been used to back at home. The patients' records had struck him as being detailed and meticulously written, well-updated even, but then the one he had seen of a pale girl with sweeping eyelashes and dark hair like so many of the natives here, had not prepared him for seeing a sort of delicate, fairy-child of a woman, bedridden and an invalid to a large extent of her life. He was barely older than her, six years, in fact, and yet, he was her doctor and she was dependent on his care, and it struck him then, that she must have been here in the hospital, captive throughout her teenage years, having little of an education while he in Germany, studied and graduated to be a doctor.

He had been careful with her, given her condition, and since then, she had made some marked improvement, and he had been elated, just as his colleagues had been. In fact, they had been amazed by his success, and that was when Eliase had begun to see Meg change. The first time he had seen her, she had been weaker then, a mask had been hiding the bottom of her face and her frail arms were ridden and wrought with ugly needles and long, indifferent tubes and a packet of her blood hanging above her finely-structured head. But then the next time, she had been awake as he made his call, and when she had looked at him solemnly and asked for his name, something had stirred in his chest.

And now, he stared at her, and she slowly turned around, obviously taking some effort to do this, to look at him. The ring she wore on her finger since the first day he had seen her, the one she never took off, apparently, now glimmered as she rotated her slim waist slightly as she sat upright in her bed. He wondered who had given the ring to her, and why she insisted on wearing it for everyday and every hour, every minute of her life. Something like doubt and envy rose, but he pulled it down like a window's blinds, he was a lunatic.

And then Elias detected the light, naturally feminine smell that was one with the thin linen pajamas that Meg wore, and he swallowed a little, feeling as if the doll was glaring at him.

"Where did the doll come from?" He asked cautiously, looking at it. It, no, she, she hadn't moved.

'Oh what the hell,' He thought rashly, 'She's a doll for Pete's sake, even if she could be a sort of child size and almost breathing.'

"I-I found her," Meg replied, not totally untruthfully, and then she understood how feeble her answer sounded and quickly elaborated, "My parents left her for me and I finally recieved the parcel. It's been a long while since they passed away, probably the parcel-,"

She trailed off tactfully. Nobody in this hospital, including Eliase Schultze, would ever prompt her on this. The second year after she had found Suigin Tou, her parents had died in the misfortune the car accident had caused, leaving Meg an orphan but enough to stay here comfortably well-off for the rest of her life. The immediate pain had been blinding, and Suigin Tou had been a strong wall, supporting in her silent way, for during that time, she did not leave in the day, she stayed throughout the night by Meg's side and even when the sun was high up in the sky the next morning.

"Oh," Eliase said softly, understanding that she did not want to elaborate any further but not quite comprehending exactly that this was a ruse. "I heard voices in here as I passed, I thought I was dreaming, but now I know I was mistaken."

"No, no," Meg said hastily, shaking her head, "You did hear a voice. But only one, mine. I-," She looked ill at ease, "I was talking to myself before this. Talking to myself about how lovely Suigin is."

"Suigin?" The doctor said in amazement, and his hand shot up to his hair as he ran a hand through it nervously, not sure if Meg was delirious or anything like that. His handsome features, serious but somehow not without that boyish, fine quality that made the nurses talk about him, now were lined with worry. He leaned forward, closing the distance between Meg and him so much so that he could have almost kissed her, and his hand was now on her forehead, but her temperature was normal, and then he flushed, realising that she was looking up at him questioningly but with nothing more than child-like trust and innocence. And Elias was determined to never take advantage of that.

"That's what her name is, you know," Meg said seriously, nodding to herself, "Suigin Tou. Mercury Lamp."

"She's standing," Elias said disconcertedly, and indeed, Suigin was, not daring to move, not daring to stir or even raise a single eyebrow at his non-astute observation in her trademark cynicism that usually made Meg laugh wildly with glee.

"She's very well-made," Meg explained in a rattle of poorly-placed thoughts, "She can bend and be arranged like this, like this," She grabbed Suigin in a hasty decision and proceeded to illustrate her point, "And she also sits."

She forced Suigin into an awkward, rather stiff posture with a right-angle bend at the back so the doll sat on the bed, her eyes a bit sceptical. But Elias ignored this, his imagination had always been quite rich as a child. Perhaps these was one of those days. In any case, Meg was distracting him by asking him about various things he wasn't keen to discuss with anyone, the sort of mundane things that were not exactly superb conversational points. But with Meg, he was willing to tell her about the whole world outside if she asked for it.

And he had convinced himself, a long time ago, that casual conversations, light-hearted and somehow fulfilling, were for Meg's good. He had told himself sternly, even as his heart beat wildly, that she had been cooped up to long and to much in this room, the world outside was somehow just a stone's throw away from her window but a totally different universe altogether, and that conversations and interactions like these would lift her spirits and help her to recover faster. This was true; her progress was remarkable for now, but Elias Schultze knew he was lying to himself.

He had requested that she call him Elias, his first name, something awkward in both their cultures, because one did not address the other by his first name unless they were familiar enough with each other to do so. But while he was fluent in her native tongue, she could hardly pronounce his surname, and just hearing her address him by an unintimate 'Doctor' had been rather disappointing each time he observed her soft eyes and ready smile. So he had made the request and she had dutifully complied.

He spoke with her a little while more, and then he realised, with a pang and a look at his watch, that it was time to make calls for the other patients. The doll was resting on her chest, still sitting awkwardly and a bit stiff, and Elias wondered if it was better off standing, for it was a fine, perfectly-crafted doll with workmanship that seemed to be reminiscent of the dollmakers back in Germany. He considered asking Meg this, but she was looking out of the window, dreaming again, and he smiled quietly and moved stealthily, out of the door, shutting it gently.

Just to humour himself, he kept silent outside it, listening intently, but there were no more sounds of her voice or the other one he had imagined, slightly deeper than Meg's lilting one, more mellow like aged, smoked honey with a strange, cruel tinge of bitterness, cruel in such a palely-lit flower petal of a voice, unique and engimatic, far more dream-like than Meg's crystal mint one.

Then he thought of himself as ridiculous and hastily moved on to see the next patient. His heart was beating very fast near the cage of his ribs under the soft flesh and muscle, like a living, flesh-coloured jewel waiting to be impaled by a girl's pale hand that would bear a rose beneath the spider-lily fingers. His mind was awash and drowning with Meg's face and her eyes, but he was hearing a voice that belonged to nobody he could summon forth in his memory.

And he left, striding forward and away from the first patient he had taken charge of in this hospital and strangely, the girl who was so unwise in the ways of the world and the dealings with men but not very much younger than Elias Schultze.

Only then, did Suigin Tou dare to swivel her head properly and say sardonically to a helpless, giggling Meg, "Busybody."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

* * *

_I dreamt the dream_

_Only a doll would dream of,_

_One in which I was human._

_And when I woke up, I was _

_No longer a doll but a human,_

_Only that I was broken like a doll._

* * *

_"It was beautiful."_

_A sharp breath, drawn inwardly to her soul. And her eyes were wide with pleasure and they sparkled a rosy colour in her pale, white face. She looked less broken, somehow more complete._

_'Amazing,' Shinku thought, but doubt settled in her like a cloud of sea sand in the water._

_"Will Father be pleased?"_

_A slight nod, quick and tidy but brimming with confidence._

_"Yes, very much so."_

* * *

The autumn days were drawing nearer and nearer, and to Suigin it felt like the third season had came early and too suddenly, like how the grass had suddenly became swords of brown, individual blades of crackling orange, and the trees shy of the leaves that were now in a radii around their feet. 

She sat quietly in the park, enjoying the silence of the world around her in the greying sky of the early autumn evening, savoring the few hours of light she had left. Nobody wanted to be in the park now, it was too cold outside, but for a doll, it did not matter. She sat delicately on the edge of the bench, not caring about the leaves that swept across her screen of vision occasionally.

And she thought, and she thought hard.

At a certain point, she became aware that a child was staring at her. A child with blonde hair and wide green eyes, and she thought immediately of Sara, Shinku's former medium, the girl who had called Suigin 'pretty' but later called her 'weird' and 'pale' and other things like that, made disapproving sounds when Shinku had taught Suigin to walk. And this child had her hair and her eyes, but her face was streaked with tears and some other form of grime. Another difference was that Sara had been about ten, but this child could have been no older than five, for her chubby hands and innocent eyes reflected this. Why, thought Suigin, she's not very much larger than me!

She sat very, very still, wondering if it was irony or fate that was forcing her to behave like this for the second time this week.

"Pretty doll."

'Go away,' She thought exasperatedly, 'Go and bother someone else and you shouldn't even be out here today in this weather, you should be at home, a child as young as you are should be with her mother in the warm house you own.'

But as if to be purposely disobedient to Suigin's silent pleas, the child scrambled to the old bench and plopped her tiny body down. What a strange pair they must have seemed to anyone who might have been watching. A young girl with the brilliant red and pink knitted coat and the warm blue scarf, and another maiden in plain black and white, niether smiling, one looking a bit sullen and the other looking lost.

'I hope I don't have to pretend to be a human of her age.'

"You know," the child said in broken German, as if she was only beginning to speak properly, and then it struck Suigin suddenly that this girl didn't belong in this land either, like Elias Schultze. And what was she doing in the park anyway? Why hadn't she thought about this girl's background when she had first spoke? Had it been a subconsciousness to understand every language the humans spoke?

All this troubled Suigin, but the girl was rambling on to whoever who would listen. And of course, Suigin had no choice.

"You know," the girl said earnestly, "Maman will be worrying. I wish I did not let go."

She began to cry and rubbed her eyes with her dirty little paws that had mud stains. She had obviously fallen at one point or the other, Suigin thought critically, staring at her from the corner of her eye but not moving a single joint. She waited for the child to calm down and go away, but nothing of that sort happened. Instead the girl cried louder and louder, until her desolate sobs shook the air and only Suigin would hear her. And she finally came to a conclusion that if she did not do anything and soon, this girl would drown her in a lake.

"Hush," Suigin said abruptly, "I desire to hear no more of a human's weeping."

The language that seeped from her tongue was unlike the one she had used for Meg, for Suigin found herself speaking in this child's tongue, and the tiny girl fell over in her shock and climbed shakily to the bench, staring wildly at the doll that had spoken. Suigin wondered if she would scream and run away, which was the desired effect, but blast it, the child's eyes were filled with a growing awe.

She flinched as the child grabbed her shoulders and shook them hard, in fact, very hard, and her teeth were nearly rattling in her ivory mouth. Instinctively, her sword materialised and she pinned the child to the bench and drew the sword across the fine white, creamy throat, not very much unlike Meg's, and then the child screamed in sheer terror.

"Swear that you won't lay another hand on me," She demanded fiercely, not an ounce of empathy left in her even as the human started crying in her childish misery and terrible fear. The frightened child sobbed her answer, and appeased, Suigin stepped back, but her hand was still firm on the hilt and the blade still sinister and defensive in its gleam.

Angrily, she whirled away and found a hand on her dress. Wildly irritated now, Suigin cursed the fact that she had spoken first to the child and brought this plight upon herself. "What do you want?"

"I want to go home!"

A sob pealed in the air like a broken bell that chimed sadly in the wind, and Suigin paused, not so much irritated now as much as the feelings of bewilderment welled up in her. And she looked at the child who wasn't very much bigger than her and said evenly although not unkindly, "You got lost didn't you? If you got lost then you can get found."

The child shook her fair head, and clung on tighter, and a fresh wave of ire flashed in the doll but the child did not let go still.

She stammered, afraid of Suigin's darkening expression, "I don't know how."

"Where were you before this?" Suigin asked sharply, wishing that she would jsut disappear so Suigin could return to the hospital, Meg would be wanting to see her soon, Meg was always needy during this time of the day when the sun disappeared and the night fell upon both of them, as if seeking comfort from her companion.

"Fish, and vegetables and kites, and sweets!"

"Market-place, I take it to be. Stay here."

She flung the hand off and muttering her ire under her breath, she extended her wings in a flurry of raven, and ignoring the girl's startled gasp, but all the same feeling quite competent, Suigin rose into the air and glared down. "If you move from here, I won't help you anymore."

Not bothering to see the girl's eager nod or shouts of compliance, she lifted herself higher and further, knowing fully well that the child would not disobey her words. And she circled slowly above until she spotted the tents and little vendors being kept away, the hot steam of roasted chestnuts dying away regretfully and a person shaking the arms of people who merely shook their heads and moved on. The colors of the signs shouting the quality of their fresh produce seemed hollow as they were removed and strings untied here and there in preparation for the stallkeepers to go home. The woman would not give up however, she was nearly in tears and yet nobody could help, for they had not seen her child wander off, and even if they had, they would not say. Home was nearby, they saw no reason to spend a few hours in the cold looking for a miscreant. And she brightened in her heart, but caught herself doing this and frowned, a bit upset.

She looked around and spotted a large, intelligent-eyed pidgeon, one she was well acquainted with although she was not quite impressed with his inability to think deeply and uninspired by his lack of aspirations, worms not withstanding. Still, he was a loyal pet. And she whistled lightly and he joined her, flapping quite gracefully for so plump and chubby a bird, his ash and pepper feathers composite with her dark ones. And once she had confirmed his understanding of what she required, she patted his neck carefully with one pale hand and settled in a tree, baleful and silver in regal black, watching as the pidgeon flew directly at the desolate mother, pecking at her hat and yanking the ends of her scarf.

Baffled, the mother beat angrily at the bird and Suigin sighed. Humans were unintelligent in general. But she closed her eyes and counted to ten, and then she reopened them. By the time she did, the mother was allowing herself to be led in the direction of the park where the bench would be, where her child would sit.

And Suigin was sorely tempted to hurry back to Meg and bring her the first snow that would fall, like delicate silver shavings on the last leaves of the autumn, and watch as the glowing eyes grew wide and the white cheeks were stained pink and the finger tips, delicate and pointed, hesitantly reached out to caress each silver piece and witness the vanishing within mere seconds, and the sight of slight regret but absolute satisfaction that followed from her soft lips. But she grugingly flew above them, and watched quietly as the child screamed in joy upon seeing her mother and the adult likewise. Only then did she return to the window side of Meg's bed.

She did however, complete her mission, and she landed lightly like a bird at Meg's window, but the voices stopepd her in her tracks outside the wide sill she might have sat on.

And so she gently laid the leave with the snowflakes at one side and stood behind a curtain, drawn to the sounds that were emitting from the world Meg lived in. She knew Elias Schultze was around, she heard his soft, pleasing voice, light and fine but somehow deep as well, and another she recognised as the nurse's, crisp and very pititless. And she knew that it wasn't time for Meg's checkup, that was usually in the morning, and panic seized her.

She looked in wildly, afraid to see crude machines and tubes and the terrible mask blocking half of the sweet face from sight, and then the wild beating of her heart calmed. She saw the beauty in Meg's sleeping form, peaceful, tranquil, although there was something disconcerting about the lifeless appearance, save for the slight rising and descending of her chest and the slight quiver of her lips as she breathed. And she listened intently.

"I'm not blind."

"I never said you were, Tsubaki."

His voice was calm, his expression unreadable, although Suigin knew something ran deeper in them. Worried, she cast her eyes to Meg, but Meg was certainly not pretending to be asleep, she truly was in a deep slumber Suigin recognised as the effects of her medicine.

"Doctor Schultze," the woman, in her late thirties had a voice that was currently brimming with impatience and some anger, "Don't you understand that you might destroy Megu?"

"So that's her name, is it?" He answered quietly, "She told me her name, but when I couldn't pronounce it in its authentic way when we first met, I shortened it to Meg and I've called her that ever since. She never told me not to. Or was I being too presumptuous?"

The nurse was silent but her eyes were brooding and angry, protective, as protective as the mother's embrace had been only just when Suigin had returned her back to her child. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

His gaze was inflicted with pain that he could not hide. "I'm afraid not, I might already know your answer."

"She's a child."

"She's twenty-two." His voice was firm now.

"Damn you!"

A long lapse of silence, and Suigin had flinched at the nurse's hiss, she had looked away, now she dared to look back in, and saw that the doctor hadn't flinched unlike her, he remained impassive.

"Yes," He said flimsily but in that wild courage she saw even as they conversed in whispers while Meg slept, "I'm damned. I was damned the minute I set eyes on her."

And he turned on his heel and strode out of the door. The nurse followed minutes after, but not before staring at the slumbering form, long and hard, with sadness moving in her hands and her eyes, and then she followe suit, leaving Meg to her dreams and Suigin Tou to her thoughts.

She looked pensively at her medium and thought of the first time they had met. She had been unimpressed by the human's lack of strength or any particularly striking attirbutes, and yet, she had been forced to take her as a medium, and beyond that, she had sensed a steel of core in the human girl. Meg had been about seventeen then. And she was dangerous, however, for she had induced Suigin Tou, lawless and cold, to think of the possibility of dreaming about a future of light. And that held the most problems in itself, hadn't it? She had refused to take Meg's entire life, as if silently rebuking the human for her flippant disregard of a human soul Suigin was fighting so desperately for, and she had even thought, not toyed, but seriously desired to use the Rosa mystica to heal Meg, nevermind that she might have had to forgo becoming Alice.

Meg had been more worth it than becoming Alice. And Suigin found a quiet smile flickering across as she watched the sleeping girl.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

* * *

_Grant me a rose, _

_A bud of blood, or a soft_

_Blossom with the core_

_Helios has made as a golden tuft._

_Grant me a rose, red, or black_

_With the stains of blood, all the same._

_For they say a rose, red and bloodied_

_Will smell as sweet as any rose with another name._

* * *

_Shinku had warned her of this, not with words but with the clear, blue gaze Suigin had met with her blood-pink one._

_"If I do as you request," Shinku had told her simply, "It might not turn out as you expect."_

_The elder of the twins had a broken expression in her eyes. Just as well. Suigin had not seen how she could face the sister who had lost part of her soul by losing a twin that she, Suigin, had taken from her. Guilt was not an issue. There was no such thing as guilt for something as ruthless and beautifully excruciating, barbaric, in the game, in the gamble to become perfect by marring everything around oneself. That was the nature of the Alice Game._

_"I make no room for regret," Suigin had replied coldly, glancing at the glowing mirror she had only just stepped through, "I desire for this and you will gain something I can give should you assist me."_

_The boy had not been around. Sleeping, most probably._

_Shinku had looked wary, but Suisei Seki had not spoken._

_"What will you give in exchange for the use of the dream passages?"_

_A sneer had uplifted onto Suigin's face then. "Not all that altruistic, are we?"_

_"Is this a subset of your mission? To deviate and digress as such?" Cool clarity. Shinku was not like Kanaria or Suisei Seki, she had no temper, and even if she did, she showed no sign of owning one. Clearly, she was not easy to goad. But Suigin knew that already, she knew that much about Shinku at least. Patience, pathethique, Shinku had these. She, Suigin, was walking, proud and upright precisely because Shinku had these._

_"If you allow me the assistance," Shinku had said easily, now addressing Suisei Seki, "I'll grant you, in exchange, a Rosa Mystica."_

_There was a gasp that tore itself dreadfully from Shinku and Suisei Seki's lips. _

_"You don't believe me," Suigin Tou had said decidedly, measuring the horrified shock on both her sisters' faces. The mirror had been still glowing a strange, dejected blue, casting a dim light about their bodies and hands. Her white skin was merle now._

_"Your Rosa Mystica can't- shouldn't, no, it's not possible! Sousei Seki's Rosa Mystica is already- Suisei will not tolerate-,"_

_"Eloquence, sister, eloquence," Suigin had said calmly, ignoring the stutters, "Credit Father with that aspect of his creations at the very least with what you can perform."_

_Shinku had been thoughtfully silent. "You say you'll give your Rosa Mystica up? Can it put life back into a doll that doesn't have its original one?"_

_The silence had been prevalent once more, until Suigin spoke, breaking it into half._

_"Haven't you heard, Shinku?" she had said wistfully, "A rose by any other name smells just as sweet."_

* * *

"Do you like her?" Meg asked innocently, holding up what Elias had been staring at discreetly for a while until Meg herself had noticed. He looked slightly shaken that he had been discovered in this act, but he found himself incapable of denying it otherwise. 

So Elias smiled slightly at her and nodded. "She's miraculous, a masterpiece."

"She is, isn't she?" Meg said innocently, and a hand moved to her lips in her excitement, Elias' eyes followed it sharply and then he realised what he had been doing and dropped his gaze from her ripe lips, feeling embarrassed. She did not notice, and even if she did, she neglected to say anything.

She was wearing the usual hospital robes, but today's were soft flannel that showed most of her neck and arms, althought that would do her no harm in the heated room. Her hair had been freshly-washed and was slightly curling, damp with the moisture and her eyes dewy and luminous. He swallowed a little, looking down at Suigin Tou. The doll was seated next to her in her bed, and his former dream was disturbing him and his imagination running wild. The blade's metallic taste and the blood, his own, filling his mouth, the scent of the rose petals, that had been so real-

"I brought you a present," He said gently to Meg, lifting the bag up and revealing a flat, large white box. She opened her mouth in astonisment and he grinned at her child-like joy, although she tried to shake her head and tell him that she would not be able to accept it.

"Take it," He insisted, "I bought it for you."

Slowly, she lifted the box and her breath jammed. A soft cream chiffon dress stared back at her, its lace details pretty and crip in their plucked freshness. "How beautiful!"

"I'm pleased," He replied, smiling very slightly, "You will wear it, I hope?"

"I will!" She promised, and her eyes looked a bit pensive, "But I don't know when I can."

"Any time you want," He persuaded softly, "You don't have to stay in the hospital attire every minute of the hour, nor do you have to live here for the days of the life you live. I promised I would bring you out one day, didn't I? So we'll wait for that time, and then you can wear this."

She nodded obediently. Suigin, watching critically, narrowed her eyes but re-widened them lest the doctor notice. He was irritating her, but then she had already made up her mind and it was far too late to change the plan when it was going so well and so accordingly to schedule. Shinku had been concerned, but Suigin had not bothered with the unimportant aspects of filling her in on every detail that went through her head.

"Meg," Elias said abruptly, and his eyes were worried, "I've been meaning to ask you, who- er, if you don't mind me asking," He added hurriedly, reminding himself that this was the culture and the norms of the country he was in.

"No," She prompted sweetly.

"Who's ring are you wearing?" He asked tensely. She looked panicky for a minute, but then her expression cleared and she said dreamily, "Oh, this, I-,"

She lifted a hand to the light and the ring glinted in its enigmatic secrecy, the gold and rust merging as one, sensous and elegant on her finger. "Someone I know gave this to me, someone very dear."

He was afraid of her answer. "Not your parents?"

"No," She said assuredly, but not realising that his eyes had darkened unlike what she had intended, "Somebody I love very much, somebody I want to be with for the rest of my life. The person who gave me this owns everything of me, my body, my soul, everything."

His face registered nothing but there was a brokeness in his eyes. And Suigin cursed violently in her heart. She should have warned Meg, that was no doubt true, but why was this girl so stupid? If only she'd opened her eyes larger and looked carefully at Elias Schultze's face, perhaps she might have seen what Suigin saw within the smooth, waxen face and pained blue eyes.

She felt a mirthless chuckle seep from within, it was irony, the doll and the doctor sharing a secret.

"I suppose someone like you would-,"

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that," She said innocently, her eyes tranquil, not understanding. He shook his head, guilty suddenly.

Suigin Tou scowled, then hastily wiped it off from her face. Too much in too little time was a bad decision. Soon though, she promsied herself, soon. The shearing and the watering would be together, complete again. And maybe, just maybe it would even be enough for the tiniest one to awake and grumble coquettishly about the sleep she had been put into.

A smile touched Suigin's lips. She would never belong there.

Meg was gazing out of the window, her eyes a dreamy texture. When spring arrived, the flowers would send their scents to the little passage into the world outside her room, and perhaps Suigin would present some of those to her, wild and brimming with dew like cups filled with the sweetest tastes and the freshest, most pleasing colours. Would she be pleased? Hopefully.

The doctor was standing up, smiling and saying something to Meg, but Suigin was motionless, submerged in thoughts, hazy and unclear. Shinku hadn't said anything then, merely pursed her lips and scrutinsed her, but the clear blue was disconcerting to look at in that moment. And doubt entered Sugin's heart as she sat frozen on the bed, then sprung up and flew out wihthout hearing Meg's bewildered expression. She would explain when she had the time.

That night, Meg looked at her and said in a strange, melancholy way, "I'm afraid."

"Of what?" Suigin said calmly, unruffled, sitting at the ledge with her legs crossed over and her tiny hands settled comfortably there. The moon was full and a pearl in the black silk of the sky, singular and lonely. And Selene had borrowed Artemis' arrows, combined moonlight with the shaft of pure direction and put them into the room here.

"I'm afraid to die."

"You won't." Suigin said automatically.

Had this been in the past, Meg might have never said this. Had this been in the past, Suigin would have made a snide comment or two, ominous as well, warning her that she didn't really quite care about the fears this medium had. But it was impossible now. Time was impossible an enemy to try and defeat in all manners of the meaning. And now, Suigin was struck with silent, repulsive fear of something she had never feared- the future.

The endless dream- where did it begin and when did it end?

Decade after decade, battle after battle, dream melding into dream- when she tried to distinguish each layer from the other, the onion fell apart. reality was cruelly crushed into pieces of the long dream that was made of so many indistinguishable ones. Humans would perish and she would eventually if the Rosa Mystica was taken away. And without a core, she would disintergrate, become nothing more than a wooden and procelain thing, waiting to be claimed by the damage of the passing years and the degradation of time's sand in the giant hourglass of eternity.

"What makes you think I won't?" A tremulous pain had entered Meg's voice, and she was shaking under her covers.

"Because the doctor can save you. He'll take care of you."

"He can't save this wrecked heart. It was supposed to fail when I was three, but I lived. And then it was supposed to betray me when I was fourteen but I survived. And even my parents got tired of waiting for me to die, got tired of being sad on my behalf, and then they died first. He can't save this heart."

"Trust."

"You know something don't you? Are you keeping something from me, Suigin?"

"No."

"My nerves are bad to-night. Stay with me."

"Stay?"

"Yes, stay."

Silence from Suigin and exasperated pain from Meg's eyes.  
The world was silver, silent.

"I never know what you are thinking."

"Thinking."

And Suigin could no longer speak The searing agony was a scar reopened. Father had left her with that at least. Would she do that to Meg too? Angry, Suigin stood and said sharply, "I won't always be here to protect you."

Hurt shone in Meg's eyes, and Suigin softened involuntarily. "That's why I will find you one who will for the rest of your existence."

"Who?"

"Can you not guess?"

But the naive light and questioning gaze showed Suigin how little this would amount to, her efforts for now. And she sighed quietly, although the sigh rippled through her body, and she said softly to Meg, "Sleep now. You will learn soon enough."

Meg stared at her, but found no strength to argue, at least not for tonight.

And yet, just before she drifted off, weightless and bound to nothing as she crossed the barrier of consciousness, Meg's voice, tiny and softly intense, like the cries of the new-born, blind, pink kittens, had said, "I'm afraid to die because I don't want to leave this world and you."

There was a silence again, but it was a lullaby now.

But Suigin Tou left soon, in spite of the overwhelmingly strong desire to watch Meg fall asleep, see her features become peaceful and painless, see that tiny trace of bitterness leave her face and watch Meg become a child that she should have been, optimistic and unaware of the world's cruelty, so much so that asking for death would have been insanity and not a kindness.

Because she could not afford the night to watch Meg slumber. Elias Schultze's nightmares had to be consistent for everything to be made worthwhile then.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6

* * *

_

_Blue Room is a half-rhyme,_

_Cold fire is a conceit._

_Not imperfect is a litote,_

_But I am not complete.

* * *

_

_He lay in his bed, his eyes closed. And then they fluttered open, with a tremor of unwillingness. Elias would have blamed on exhaustion and long hours of work, but then this dream was not an unfamiliar one. And it fascinated him so much._

_He would go to bed, and then wake up in the night. And he would not know if it was a dream, only that when he woke up again, the alarm clock would be screeching a tattoo in his brain._

_But now, he was at the border of sleep and consciousness- neither of which were clearly cut, really. And Elias Schultze wondered if it was the same dream that had permeated his sleep, or if it was real. Reality fell apart, layer by layer, someone had told him that. But then, Elias Schultze did not trust that person- an asylum was not a good place to reform philosophical truths and beliefs._

_For a girl sat at the edge of his bed, a girl with snow hair and ruby eyes and a curved smile playing on perfectly pink lips, with just a touch of cruelty tugging at the edges. Just a little hint of teasing there- but the eyes were chilling. _

_Suigin Tou, Again?_

_He rubbed his eyes. This was getting insane._

_"You think you're dreaming," She said in perfect German. His native tongue. Her voice was rich and not without a touch of cockiness._

_He halted, not so much with fear, but surprise. She had not spoken in his dreams before, merely looked at him with that enigmatic smile and held a sword in her hands. Would she try to kill him in this dream and turn it into a nightmare? And this was so real- was he even dreaming? But dolls didn't speak- not even on that had its mistress speaking to it. That was merely Meg's simply fantasy he had allowed her to have. _

_This was too much._

_"I am dreaming." He said. Or croaked. Whichever. He answered her in the tongue she had offered to him- instinct was a powerful urge here. And he gazed at her, wondering why he was sleeping in a hospital bed, in hospital clothes, smelling the clean, sterile air, when his own quarters in the hospital were nothing like that. This was a truly strange dream. And the doll was talking!_

_Suigin Tou smiled a little wider, her lips full and rosy. "I never said you weren't."_

_"Don't play mind games with me!" He said sharply. "Is this a dream or not?"_

_She grinned and came closer. Why was a doll he had only seen a few times haunting his sleep? And she had fitted nicely into Meg's arms- now, she was as large as Meg, and as strangely beautiful. He would have liked to hold her, to feel if she was as soft as he thought Meg would be, or to kiss her on her lips and see if she was really a doll or a mortal he would have loved instantly._

_For a minute, he thought he saw black hair instead of snowy strands, and the only thing that reminded him that this person in his dream was Suigin Tou, was the black of her clothes. A silver emblem of crosses glinted ominously under the moon. The room was dark._

_"Doctor," She said lovingly, "You love Meg, don't you?"_

_Her eyes were laughing at him. He did not like how they twinkled with malice. Her fingers drew nearer and they stroked his cheek playfully. Her eyes were not rubies- he realized this now. They looked like spilt blood._

_"This is a dream," He muttered. "This is a dream, and you're not asking me if I love my-," He forced a terrible laugh although his heart had nearly plummeted, "-patient. Ridiculous. I'm going mad."_

_Her fingertips were like five pieces of chipped ice, burning into his flesh. "You aren't. But Meg will die anyhow. But you don't love her and it does not matter, does it?"_

_She smiled her maddening smile- it was obvious that she had called his bluff.. He stared, his eyes wide, and then he gripped the hand on his cheek and hissed, "What are you?"_

_It did not bother that this was a dream and he was dreaming. It did not matter that in the morning, he would wake up in his bed, the alarm clock screeching through the air for him to get out of bed and to wash and shave, it did not matter that he would see Meg and laugh and tell her about a ridiculous dream he had._

_"Death," She said simply. He suddenly noticed how close she was, and fought a scream. He dropped her hand like it had been a white-hot piece of metal and looked fearlessly into her eyes. They were murderous and yet she was so beautiful, so perfect and so fair. He wondered why this was happening to him, and he wondered why his dreams had been so painful recently. There had been images of Meg, thin and pale, in death, images of her doll swinging her legs by the end of his bedside, surveying him with cold eyes, and for some reason, black feathers had peppered the frayed edges of his consciousness. He was more than half convinced that his sanity was going down the drain. But if he was truly sane then-_

_"If you are not lying," He said quietly, "Then you are Death. And I want you to leave her alone. You can take anyone but her."_

_"I love her," The girl said pleasantly, her lips thinned with a smile, "And I love her so."_

_He shook his head in anger. "I forbid you to take her. I am capable of anything if I have to fight for her. And I say you will not take her."_

_She laughed a tinkling laugh and there was a flash of silver. He noticed, in a daze, that it was a sort of ornate sword. There were blood fed roses in her cheeks, blooming and giving her a girlish beauty in spite of the winter of her face and the ice of her eyes. Death._

_Then she stood up, her gown blowing in the wind that swept through the window. Meg's window. And then it hit him. He was lying in Meg's bed, witnessing death lying with him. God- this nightmare._

_"Prove it." Death said simply._

_He shouted in a rage and tried to stand. But his feet were glued somewhere and his body was lead in the bed. Why?_

_He awoke- sweating. _

_The dream had been too real. Too real to ignore, in fact.

* * *

_

"Please, don't question me," Elias said unhappily, "I think it's necessary. She will go through what I propose at his point in time."

"But Doctor," The nurse said, bewildered, "She's been fine so far- there's not a single indication of a relapse, and a full check will take far too long, in any case. She will be worried, and there is not a single person who will come for her now that she is an orphan, and if she worries, it will be bad on her health!"

"Worse if I don't make sure she is fine." Elias said grimly. "Get prepared."

She had no choice but to oblige. After all, he was the head doctor here now. The previous one had died in a car accident.

How strange. Car accidents weren't uncommon- but Meg's parents had died in car accidents. Her previous doctor had died in one too. This was a terrible coincidence.

"Even if I have to give her away to another person, or watch her leave this world with someone who cannot love her as much as I do," He thought silently, "I won't let her die."

He shook his head and passed by a mirror. He had never realized how much he hated a hospital- its cleanliness looked nothing like Godliness. It was more of a barren state of white than anything else. And the smell of antiseptic sickened him. What was the point of becoming a doctor if she died while he loved her and never said it for her to realize it?

The reflection that scattered along the glass panes as he walked revealed a young man, on the wrong-side of the twenties, if there were such a thing, and the glass reflected a deepened frown. He either needed a long vacation, or a shrink. Why was he paying so much attention to a dream?

And the answer dawned on him then.

Because this wasn't a one-off dream. This had been a series of repeated nightmares.

Because the nightmare always consisted of Death, in the form of Suigin Tou the Doll, coming to take Meg.

And he did not want to lose her.

He noticed the head nurse straddling behind him and his frowned deepened. The nurse, staring at the handsome young German, suddenly found it difficult to believe that he was only twenty-eight. There was a pain in his face she had never seen before, and she wondered if he was finding it a chore to breath. His fine blonde hair was dampened with sweat and the white coat, once so fitting on him, looked stifling all of a sudden.

"Doctor Schultze," She said worriedly, "Are you fine?"

He turned away. "I am. Now let's get cracking."

They entered the check-up room, and Meg sat up from where she had been carried to. Her heart-shaped face was filled with panic, and her eyes were wide and scared. "Elias, Elias!"

And a pang hit him and reverberated in his heart. She was frightened and she was calling out for him. What did he want? What did they all want from him? But he could not let go of that dream now- he would rather have her frightened than for the worse to happen. In the meantime, however, he needed to be alone with Meg.

"Let me have a minute with the patient," He told the nurse. It amazed him, how calm his voice was. His hands shook a little however, when he noticed something like a raven wing, sitting next to Meg. Her doll. She was beautifully made, he thought with some apprehension, but she was not alive. And there was simply no way there was anything deeper than stress, bad sleep, and a premonition. He would take steps to ensure he was really being paranoid, and that proof would bring an end to the nightmares and an end to Meg's worrying.

All the same- he found himself worried. What if-?

"Meg," He said softly, not going to her, "We were just doing a check. There's nothing-," He breathed a little heavier than before,  
"Very wrong."

'Please don't let there be.' He prayed. His dream had been so real- now, he wondered if this was still a dream.

"But," She said in a daze, "Why then? And Suigin Tou-,"

She fell silent suddenly, as if she realized she had said too much, and she lay; almost invalid, under the screens under the bulk of the giant machines, her doll looking considerably, and strangely less helpless than her. Disconcertment rose in Elias. What had Meg wanted to say? And why had she even spoken of the doll?

There was something wrong here.

He forced his hands to be still, and his voice to be calm. But he still did not step near them.

"Meg," Elias said steadily, "Let's take a review of your condition. You were brought here when you were four, eighteen years ago, and your condition was identified as a conginental heart disease. You have been under constant supervision since then. The probability of you suffering a relapse is at seventy-five percent chance, which is extremely high. I ask that you trust in us."

She shook her head. "You don't understand, do you? I wasn't meant to live in the first place. Babies with the heart disease have their heart ducts shutting down when they are three days old. I survived. They told me I'd be gone by the time I was five, and then I outlived that age, and they said I'd die when I was seven and I outlived that too. What more do they want of me?"

Her hair was covering her eyes, but he knew she was crying. "My parents have already died. It doesn't make a difference. And I don't need a difference. I've been praying for this- praying for an Angel of Death to take me away, take away my life force and drain me quickly so I don't have to suffer anymore. And then when I finally realized I didn't want to go like this because I found someone who I loved, it's too late and-"

She was rambling, crystal tears dripping everywhere on the blanket, and she was not making sense in the purest nature of the word, but it was enough.

In one flash, he was by her side, and it did not matter that she was a patient and professionalism should have deterred him from taking her into his arms. She was choking in her sobs and her face was buried in his coat, but he knew then that he wanted a difference for her- no, he wanted to be the difference.

"I want to make a proposition." He said quietly. "The other doctors and surgeons are afraid of doing this, not just because it is a particularly risky operation, but because it will leave a stain on their records if failure ensues. But if you will allow me to, I want to put you through an operation. I will take charge of the procedures. It has a higher percentage of success because of advancements, and I'd like you to try. Any more delay will mean _complications_."

His euphemisms nearly made him wretch, because they would not fool him, and they would not fool her.

She looked at him, her eyes red and her mouth trembling. "If it's unsuccessful, I die. But if I wait, I'd die anyway. My days have been numbered since the time I was born. And someone," She paused, choking slightly, "Someone I love is waiting for me. I cannot give up now that I know I love the person."

He let go of her, stung. He hated her suddenly. And he hated whoever who had taken her heart already.

But Elias smiled still. "Let's not disappoint."

She glanced aimlessly at her doll, and she stared up at them with a vacant expression. But Elias did not care for it any longer. His premonition had been correct from the start, thanks to nightmares and paranoia. Was this a signal from someone? God perhaps? Or something?

The test had revealed as much as this. She had experienced palpitations they had not dwelt to much on- and a relapse would come any time.

'She's outlived those death warrants,' He said to himself, wracked with pain and despair, 'She must outlive this one.'

The promise he had made would hold. He would not allow her to die like this- not without a fight at least, never mind that she would never know how tormented he was inside.

The Japanese hospitals had a marked difference in their approach to the fatally-ill patients. Knowledge was withheld, and they never knew what they were suffering from, or if they did, they would never know how badly they suffered from it. Now that he was here, he would be forced to take that approach although he personally believed that the truth was better than allowing the patient to believe in a false blanket of security. But simultaneously, he was afraid to tell Meg of her critical condition, afraid that she would give up all hope and accelerate her spiral downwards.

He glanced at the doll, and hatred filled him for no rational premise and for no sane grounds. All the same, the nightmares had been a warning, a good enough warning for precautions to have been made. He thanked the doll silently, not knowing if there was still something wrong in his logic or there was still something wrong with his sanity in the first place, or if this was another kind of nightmare.

Meg would undergo the operation. If successful, it would ensure a relatively normal life for the rest of her days. If not-

Elias tried to ignore the image of a beautiful, white doll dressed in black with her ruby eyes and pretty smile.


End file.
